This incident happened 15 years ago today.

I got up early and rode my Honda Gold Wing down to Corpus Christi. Before the day was over, I’d end up in Brownsville where we had a project ongoing.

The screen shot below is a memory that I wrote about and posted on Facebook. Mind you it was a part of a long story, but it was written to make my point concerning how cops don’t always shoot straight. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t involved in a shootout but keep reading and you’ll see what I’m getting to.

My son Ron Jr. was working in Brownsville on the project I mentioned already. He had just made a deal for a new Harley and wanted to get out for a nice Sunday ride. The plan was for us to meet at Water Street Seafood at an appointed time, eat lunch and then we’d ride together back to Brownsville.

Everything came off as planned. We met and had a nice lunch. Then we headed out of Corpus for a nice leisurely, perhaps fast two hour trip back to Brownsville. I was in the lead and was following the GPS. I had selected a route that would take us on country highways until we reached US 77 at Bishop, Tx. Then we could really open it up and roll on down through the King Ranch.

Let me stop for a second and fill in a little more information. Ron Jr. was coming off a divorce and had run into a little difficulty with the authorities in Austin, an incident down on 6th street had left him without his drivers license for a few months. But in celebration of getting his license back he bought the motorcycle and planned to go the next day, Monday, to finally be where he was able for life to return to normal.

I questioned him before we locked in on our plan to meet up, as to whether riding up there without a drivers license was the wisest thing to do. But there was no way that new motorcycle was going to set there all day Sunday without him going someplace.

He was a grown man of 30 years old, so I figured who was I to be telling him what to do.

Below is a previous story I wrote:

No is where the I need to explain the rest of the details. I came around a long curve on this country highway and passed a line of cars. Ron, just a ways behind me did the same thing. However he met a Nueces County Deputy coming the other way. Perhaps he had accelerated above the posted speed limit as he passed the line of cars.

By the time I got down the road a few miles and had started to linger waiting on my riding partner and he never appeared, I doubled back to see where he was. I rode past him and the Deputy a ways then turned back around. I knew that the circumstances weren’t good.

Not wanting to become entangled in my son’s deal, I continued up a ways, probably about 50 yards, before I stopped on the shoulder of the road. That is when the Deputy made a beeline for me. I feared nothing, because I’d done nothing wrong. Then the whole encounter above happened.

Once I was turned loose, she had finished with Ron so we were free to go. Except she was impounding his motorcycle due to him not having a current license.

I explained to the cop that my wife was on her way down in my Suburban pulling my motorcycle trailer. She could be there in 30 minutes or so. Nothing doing because she said we could unload it as soon as she was out of sight, blah blah blah………….. He got on behind me and we rode away.

Madeline was coming down to visit family in Brownsville and was pulling my motorcycle trailer so we could return home later in the week and could ride together if that suited us.

A day or so later Ron and his mother went back to Corpus Christi so he could retrieve his motorcycle after he had his drivers license in hand. I was amazed he didn’t end up having another 6 months added on to his suspension. I guess he slipping in before the ticket in Corpus was processed.

That all turned into such a fiasco.